In the eyes of the law

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in the case of Missouri v. McNeeley, No. 11-1425. At issue was whether or not the police must obtain a warrant prior to drawing blood from a person suspected of driving while under the influence of alcohol. McNeeley was pulled over for speeding and failed the field sobriety test. After refusing the breathalyzer, McNeeley was taken to the hospital where after refusing to allow his blood to be drawn, had the blood forcibly taken from his body. The trial court threw out the evidence from the blood test as being an unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The state appealed to the US Supreme Court asking that it declare that there is no need to obtain a warrant to draw blood. (Current law permits the drawing of blood without consent and without a warrant when alcohol is suspected after an accident with injuries). The state is asking for an extension of this rule to apply even when there is not an “exigent circumstance” such as an injury accident.

The state’s request is an example of everything that is wrong with our government today. I think reasonable people would agree that sticking a needle into your arm and forcibly withdrawing blood to be evaluated with the results being used against you in a criminal trial is not only an unreasonable seizure but would also violated your Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. When you read dystopian novels popular in the early 1900s and again today, the cause the dystopianism is always government intrusion on individual’s rights.[i]

Although I do not agree that there are any circumstances which should permit the government to forcibly take your bodily fluids to be used against you in a criminal prosecution without first obtaining a warrant, I am especially concerned that a state would feel comfortable asking to be able to conduct this type of activity without regard to the Constitution. As our rights continue to erode through the unchecked increase in government intrusion into our lives, we have to ask ourselves, when will enough be enough?

In Armour v. City of Indianapolis, (No. 11-161 6-4-12) the Supreme Court again decided to ignore the Constitution and side with the government on very unsteady ground. At issue was whether the City had to pay back to certain homeowners money it had collected for a sewer assessment that it was later able to obtain funding for (through bonds). While the plaintiffs in this case paid the entire assessment (some $9,000 up front), the other homeowners who elected to pay the assessment over time had the amounts remaining due forgiven. While this would seem to violate the Equal Protection Clause with the government favoring one group of citizens over another, the court disagreed. Because the right at issue was economic rather than a “fundamental” right, the court applied the “rational basis” test. In other words, did the City have a rational basis to make the distinction between the homeowners who paid the assessment up front and the homeowners who chose to pay it over time. The City’s “rational basis” was that it was inconvenient to issue the refunds.
To his credit, Chief Justice Roberts indicated in his dissent that: “The Equal Protection Clause does not provide that no state shall ‘deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, unless it’s too much of a bother.’” Only Scalia and Alito joined the dissent, leaving this the current law of the land as stated by a majority of 6. Your economic rights can be trampled on by government. One can only dream of the time when the American public wakes up and starts electing libertarian officials to dismantle the non-working nonsensical unconstitutional parts of our government and demand that the Constitution be followed in a logical consistent way and that the rights given to individuals in the Constitution are resuscitated.

Employers Beware: What you need to know before checking the applicants Facebook page
As tempting as it may be to check an applicant’s Facebook profile as part of the screening process, there are some legal issues you should be aware of prior to doing so. First of all, a Facebook profile includes more than just work-related information. It could contain information about a person’s age, religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, and associations. Making yourself privy to such information prior to hiring someone puts you at risk for a discrimination claim. If you wouldn’t ask for this information during an interview, you probably shouldn’t be collecting it from a social media site. If you are only checking Facebook profiles of those applicants who have profiles, you are treating your applicants differently. The overabundance of personal information on one candidate may cloud your judgment where it is not an issue with the candidate who does not have a profile. Facebook recently indicated that asking for a user’s password is a violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. There are also several U.S. states that are considering legislation that would ban this practice.
With the proliferation of social media sites such as blogs, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and their increasing prominence in the business realm, it is not surprising that employers have begun to access the information posted on these sites in the course of conducting background checks on prospective employees. It is not a good practice, however.

The District Court in Florida recently declared the new Health Care Law unconstitutional. Of course, this decision will still need to be appealed to the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, but the Judge carefully outlined the reasons for his declaration in the written opinion. Although I would have listed a few more reasons, I was impressed with some of the rationales he listed. I especially liked the fact that he went back to the actual language in the Constitution as it was intended when written. I know that is not the popular way to interpret the Constitution, but it does make sense. To summarize: Interstate commerce means interstate trade. Trade means the movement of goods in exchange for money. Insurance does in no way fall within this category. Insurance is a service, not a physical product which can travel in a truck on I-35 between Texas and Illinois. Basically, despite all of the reasons you may have heard about why this law is unconstitutional, the best one is the simplest one: it is not authorized under Section 1 Article 8 – the section which grants Congress the power to pass laws. The powers in this Article were enumerated in order to LIMIT federal government. As you can imagine this was a huge concern to our founding fathers.
There has been some talk of repealing the Health Care Act, but I hope this doesn’t happen. I would like to see the Supreme Court rule on this issue. If they do interpret the Constitution the way it was intended, they will find that Congress did not have the authority to pass this Act and it would open the door for States to bring other lawsuits concerning federal laws outside the purview of Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution. I can envision California taking on the establishment of the DEA, for example, or the passing of laws that criminalized the possession of marijuana and made it a federal offense under the Commerce Clause. (Remember, police power is reserved to the States so the only way these laws could be passed and these agencies established was through a tenuous connection to interstate commerce. Of course, the commerce clause wasn’t intended to criminalize trade. Well, at least the sale of marijuana would fall under the definition of trade. The problem is that on the one hand Congress wants to force citizens to buy the services of for-profit corporations and on the other wants to prevent citizens from purchasing a plant. Neither type of law is authorized in the Constitution. Of course, our founding fathers were not averse to marijuana – it is believed that George Washington grew hemp on his farm.)
The bottom line is that the federal government has gotten out of control of the people. It is no longer acting as a government for the people, but rather as a government for more government. Congress is passing laws in areas beyond what the Constitution permits. This is not a right v. left issue or a liberal v. conservative issue. It is simply a matter of whether or not the States are going to permit the Federal government to continue down this road. It is up to us as citizens to elect state officials who will stand up to federal encroachment. The best way to get our country back and our economy out of the gutter is to vote. Vote in your state elections – they really matter.

Another case I recently commented on has been decided. The Arkansas Mom who made comments on her son’s Facebook page as though he had made them and then changed his password so he could no longer access his account was convicted of misdemeanor harassment on May 27, 2010. The Judge ordered the Mom to pay a $435 fine and attend anger-management and parenting classes. The comments on my previous post seemed to indicate that most felt it was not ok for parents to add or delete content from their children’s facebook account. Given that this mother in particular did not have custody of her son, used profanity with him and on his page, and changed his password; I stick with my first impression that this mother has problems with communication. I have a daughter with a Facebook account. When I see something on there that I think may present an issue, I call her attention to it and explain how others may view it. I leave it up to her whether or not to remove or change it, but the important part is I talk to her about it. Children sometime make decisions or post things impulsively and then forget about them. Most children will understand if you explain to them why their posting may not be appropriate. If this mother had truly wanted to “exercise supervision over her son’s Internet activities” as she claimed, there are a lot better ways to do it. I am happy this Judge explained to this woman why her actions were so inappropriate – he parented her well.

In the Supreme Court case of Renco V. Lett, No. 09-338 (decided May 3, 2010) the Court held that no double jeopardy occurred when the defendant was retried on a murder charge after his first trial resulted in a hung jury. Despite the short amount of time the jury spent deliberating (4 hours), seven questions were sent to the Judge. It seems that the defendant was trying to indicate that because the Judge did not force the jury to go back and deliberate until they reached a verdict, the benefit of the doubt should go to him. In other words, he believed that the jury would have dismissed the case or decided on a guilty verdict for a lesser charge if they had been forced to deliberate more. The flaw here is that he didn’t object to the hung jury at the first trial, but at the second – where the jury found him guilty in less than 4 hours. It seems the Supreme Court was correct in affirming the Michigan State Supreme Court’s determination that the defendant’s rights were not violated and double jeopardy had not occurred.

I am very interested in following the Arkansas case of a 16-year-old boy who filed a complaint with the police resulting in a misdemeanor charge of harassment against his mother for making changes on his Facebook account and then changing his password so he could no longer access it. A similar issue has come up a few times in other contexts around here. A friend of mine has a daughter who goes on to his Facebook account and writes flattering comments about herself as though her Dad had posted them. It is very cute – and very obvious. Another friend got angry with her son who had gone on to her Facebook account and deleted all of the pictures she had posted of him because he didn’t like the pictures. His Mom reposted them and changed her password. I felt uncomfortable with this. Should children have the right to prevent photographs of them from being accessible on the internet? In the original case, I should mention that the Arkansas mother does not have custody of her son and removed content from his account because she didn’t like it. The fact that she essentially locked him out of the account by changing his password indicates that she is not very adept at communication. Rather than speaking with him about the appropriateness of the posts, she simply deleted them. Would you go into your teenager’s Facebook account and modify it? Would you change the password to keep him out? Under what circumstances? If you are a teen, would you go into your parent’s Facebook account and make changes or delete photos or references to you that you did not like? From a legal perspective there is something called criminal impersonation (which requirements vary from state to state), but essentially impersonating someone can be a crime under certain circumstances. If someone were to go onto your Facebook account and make changes, how would you respond?